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It is a reputation this excellent book will do nothing to dispel. As for racist monsters like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond, it is hard to read about the power they wielded without a shudder. The exception is George McGovern, for whom Perstein has clear respect despite his dreary manner and pious, preachy persona. If one can stop recoiling with moral outrage at his actions, there is an audacity in his realpolitik approach to winning that is almost seductive.
LBJ had a similar mixture of greatness (his civil rights record), trickiness (political chicanery) and wrongheadedness (the Vietnam disaster); but he has more chance of ultimate rehabilitation than Nixon. Ruthless, mendacious, vindictive beyond measure: of course; but there was a sort of tragic greatness about him too. So Perlstein's sympathies may well be left-leaning (as some other reviewers aver); but I found the book impeccably balanced. For an apparently leftist author, Perlstein skewers many heroes of American liberalism, such as Ted Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey, with humour and relish.
He saw in the mid 60's that communism in the Far East would be checked not by military might but by the growing prosperity of Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and so on. A number of reviewers have also noted that this thesis is abundantly contradicted by Perlstein's own research and analysis.Nevertheless, the book is a remarkably readable political and social history of those very troubled times, when leftist revolution or authoritarian backlash seemed equally likely to many observers. A babe in the woods predictably devoured by the ravening Nixon, McGovern at least seems to have been been pure of heart (for a politician anyway). (I should add that I am not an American, so this no doubt adds an extra layer of remoteness in my case). For example, he quotes with understandable glee the fatuous approving statements about hippies, student radicals, drug use, young peoples' clothes etc made by ageing liberals desperate to seem 'with it'.
In a seemingly rushed final few pages, Rick Perlstein invites us to agree with him that the fissures in American society of the 1960s that he describes so compellingly in this book are still the same today. As is sometimes said, such is the strength of Lucifer's portrayal in Paradise Lost that he comes to be virtually the hero of the poem and certainly its most interesting character. Nixon's tragedy (and thus America's) is that he was not just a superbly crafty operator but in some ways a visionary when it came to foreign policy. Each time segregationists or other right-wing brutes appear to shock and appal us, there are matched for ghastliness by the hippies, yippies and other monsters, mountebanks and posturing idiots of the left. So with Nixon in Nixonland. But for Watergate and his utterly cynical prolongation of a war he long knew was lost, Nixon may ultimately have been accorded a Bismark like status in American history.
This is odd; because throughout this fascinating and detailed study I kept think how strange, how different, how very remote that society seems today. These flashes of statesman-like genius seem to sit oddly with such a vindictive and unscrupulous operator as Nixon; but remember that Bismark was not just the brilliant creator of united Germany, he was the dirty trickster of the Ems Telegram affair and the anti-Catholic bigot who instigated the Kulturkampf. His famous insight that China could and should be brought into the world was too bold even for Kissinger to accept at first. Perhaps this is the fault not of Milton, but of popular culture: where, despite our moral disapproval, we cheer on resourceful villains such as Tony Soprano, Dexter Morgan and Vic Mackey. More than once, I found myself laughing at the sheer naughtiness and imagination of the dirty tricks he and his gang cooked up against their enemies; for example when young Karl Rove infiltrated the Muskie campaign stealing letterhead and handing out hundreds of invitations to a Muskie event to drunks and other undesirables. The book concludes before Agnew was forced from office.
The fact that Futurama, a programme loved mostly but not exclusively by viewers born many years after Nixon's death, frequently features his head as a stage villain shows how enduring is his reputation for zesty wickedness.
I noticed only two things that puzzled me: a spurious French etymology for the Nazi office of Gauleiter (which Perlstein misspells) and a misleading description of the relationship between British Prime Ministers Gladstone and Disraeli.
This was mostly because he delivered some very good lines against the hippies and left radicals (presumably written by the likes of William Safire) and because of his (originally) liberal civil rights stance in Maryland.
Other readers have spotted some factual errors in the book.
One is struck again and again in Perlstein's narrative by how rebarbative were political extremists on both sides.
The way to check the urge to admire Nixon even at a subterranean level, I found, was to remember i) that he was real not fictional (as improbable as it now seems) and ii) that it was not just self-righteous Democrats who were victims of his methods, but tens of thousands of innocent Vietnamese civilians and American servicemen.
What of Richard 'My Mother was a Saint' Nixon himself.
By contrast, the predictable remarks by conservatives about the selfish ingratitude of scruffy, vulgar, drug-addled, spoilt radical students seem, in retrospect, not too far off the mark.Of the politicians from both parties (and how marvellous it was to remember all these half-forgotten titans of 40 years ago), all but one emerge from the book as shoddy, duplicitious, cynics and opportunists.
Surprisingly, a figure for whom I found myself having a sneaking (and slight) admiration was Spiro Agnew.
Reagan is able to seize the populist mantle from the liberals far more effectively than Nixon and represents the true heart of the new Republican party. Perlstein's removal from the period allows him to appreciate Nixon's extraordinary astuteness and complexity. His descriptions of the riots of the time are particularly compelling, and the consistent over-reaction of the police in most of the unrest cannot be denied. Is Nixon completely unprincipled. Similarly insightful is Ambrose's biography of Nixon, which I highly recommend. Perlstein has written a gripping account of Nixon's, and the Republicans', comeback over the course of 4 elections between 1966 and 1972. Perlstein writes like a dream. Perlstein notes that Nixon concluded as early as 1966 that Vietnam was a terrible mistake and could not be won, and that the U.S.
Reagan, Perlstein observes, is both a teacher and a student of Nixon. Mr. Perlstein does concede that Nixon had a coherent higher end in foreign policy, and that, indeed, his political maneuverings were ultimately justified (at least in Nixon's view) as serving his effort to smooth America's transition to a more mulilateral world it could not dominate. On domestic policy, it's hard to see any consistent substantive agenda -- and other than to consolidate power, perhaps Nixon never had one. Of course, none of this kept Nixon from exploiting the hatred of the new left in consolidating stunning victories in 1966, 1968, and 1972.
would have to come to terms with its declining influence in a changing world. But Nixon's shrewdness is well portrayed here, as is his historical significance in redefining American politics. This is an excellent book. After reading the book, I continue to despise Nixon, particularly his maddening ability to define his political survival as vital to the American national interest, his flagrant law-breaking while at the same time running on the "law-and-order" ticket, and his dirty tricks which included even the subversion of peace talks at the end of the 1968 campaign. But Nixon is its head and easily outmaneuvers Reagan, Rockefeller, and Romney to secure the 1968 nomination. In this respect he was far different from Reagan. Unlike Perlstein, I lived through the period and have to work hard to overcome my loathing of Nixon.
George Will, who liked the book, nonetheless criticized it precisely because he sees Perlstein as failing to appreciate the substantive merits and principles of the conservative movement that Nixon and Reagan led. Maybe the new left was hated precisely because their criticisms hit home. The triumph of Reagan in the California gubernatorial election of 1966 kicks off the Republican comeback. The irony of the 1960s was that the new-left hippies (while unable to articulate a viable alternative life style and politics) were essentially correct in their criticisms of Vietnam and American culture, but at the same time were hated by an overwhelming number of Americans in both parties.
After finishing it, I'm happy I spent the time. With that said, if you want to reach a better understanding about how we got to the current political environment we're currently in, please read this book. Let me first say, I enjoyed reading Nixonland. Just make sure you're prepared for this kind of book. It hits both Repulicans and Democrats hard, but pretty fairly. However, it is a lot of work. More thinking than many books because of all the history, popular culture, and background knowledge needed.
The middle-class backlash came about because of the actual implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, multiple Watts-like riots and the loony, over-the-top shenanigans by disillusioned young adults. No question, President Nixon was an extremely intelligent person, but willing to do anything to rise and keep the Presidency. Mr.
NOBODY comes out of this investigation smelling like a rose. His approach to campaigning is the template used by most Republican candidates since the 60s. President Nixon tapped into the darker aspects of the human condition and adroitly manipulated the fears and frustrations of white America.
After reading a few of the harsh reviews, all I can conclude about critics is that we're on the same planet, but very different worlds. Presidents Eisenhower through Ford (prior to him becoming Commander in Chief) are exposed for their morally-questionable actions. Reading this engrossing tomb is well worth the effort.
Perlstein has done an excellent job deconstructing the dramatic, 180 degree shift from President Johnson's Great Society mind-set to conservative intransigence and distrust of everything coming out of Washington. The book is a dissection of political chicaneries by both liberal and conservative parties.
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3LJNKSNSG1XG6 Incredible concept for a book which is why I bought it, but I can't get past the author's heinous leftism (with which he imbues the narrative).
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